Summer, Fabulous Summer

I absolutely love this photo of the girls...the relaxed, fun and spunky feel really captures the entire summer for me in one moment.  As Sweetpea is fast approaching kindergarten and I'm headed back to school myself (this time as a teacher - my career transition is finally complete!) I will be keeping this photo handy as a reminder of the fabulous summer we had!

There were some wonderful trips, and many fun days exploring and relaxing at home as well.  I'll be sharing some of our favorites in the coming days, as well as some ideas for easing back into the structure and routines that the school year brings.  What have you been up to this summer?!

Nature Walking

Sweetpea was captivated by the dragonflies and tadpoles at the edge of this pond during a recent trip to our favorite park. I loved the look of the clouds reflecting off the surface of the water.

We followed the stream that leads off the pond and I let the girls walk along the edge, this time watching the bugs that were skimming along the top of the water. What a wonderful opportunity to get them excited and investigating! And who would wander by next but a duck family out for a quick drink.


They didn't seem to mind that we were nearby, and the girls stayed still and quiet, just watching.



Is it any wonder this is our favorite park?

Tips for Stress Free Family Travel

Family vacations can be magical for young kids and parents alike, but traveling, long lines and late bedtimes can set up the perfect storm for meltdowns. Here are my tips for planning a vacation to remember, rather than one everyone is ready to forget.

Choose a location that has activities that will appeal to everyone in your group - and find a hotel or rental that has the amenities you want (such as a pool or wifi).



Be realistic about what you can do each day. Plan time for rest, eating, relaxing and naps if necessary. If dinner reservations are late, you may want to feed younger children ahead of time or arrange babysitting.

Prepare plenty of entertainment during travel and wait times - a travel activity book, electronic toy or new book may be in order.



Do your research - sites like tripadvisor and chowhound and twitter allow you to search for food and lodging options as well as reviews like never before. The more research you do ahead of time, the more likely you are to choose wisely.



Relax, be flexible and have a sense of humor. Even if things don't turn out as expected, try and find the bright side. At least you're with family, try and make the best of it. Advocate for yourself if you are in a position that is outside your expectations.


Do you travel regularly with your family? What are your tips and tricks for stress free travel and successful vacations?

Beat the Heat with a Cold Summer Treat!

The heat has finally set in here, and we're pulling out sprinklers, baby pools, and delicious summer treats to stay cool! The watermelon this season has been fantastic, and both girls have been regularly requesting it multiple times a day and especially for breakfast. They love to eat it sliced in wedges like this...

Yummy!

Rain, rain and more rain...

means we've been enjoying a lot of these lately!

She has the force on her side

Sweetpea is a force of nature - I love to sit back and watch her go. Suffice it to say that she was right at home as the littlest apprentice in Jedi training at Hollywood Studios!

Sea Shells, Boogie Boards and Memories

Earlier this month we were at the beach. It is such a different experience, being at the beach as a parent - especially of small children -but I love watching our girls explore and enjoy the sand and surf in their own ways. Both girls love the water and will jump right into the swimming pool. Sweetpea loved the sand during her first visit to the beach (she was just a few months past 1) but wasn't so sure about the salt water. Sugar Plum likes to dig in the sand and pick up shells with her sister. She also keeps a good distance from the waves - so she hasn't even discovered that the water is salty yet...

Every trip to the beach brings with it memories of my Dad. This trip especially, as Sweetpea took longer walks picking up shells with us and made her first attempts with a boogie board. Now that we are home, she is eager to tend the garden and to cook with me - also things I loved to do with Dad. As she and I share many of the things I once did with Dad, I am starting to feel ready to share some of those memories with her. I wrote a while ago about how I plan to share my memories with the girls, and since then I've been jotting a few ideas out here and there, but haven't really gotten started. Today seems like a good day to look for some pictures to use on my cards...

Happy Father's Day to you Dads out there, and big hugs to those of you who are missing your Dad today.

A true prince...

Sweetpea is taking after mama with her enthusiasm for party planning. And how much do I love this man that he enthusiastically dubbed this surprise princess party his "best birthday ever"?! We had pizza and a princess cake, a crown and kiss coupons for our prince, and a lot of fun.


What was your "best birthday ever"? Do you encourage your kids to help planning celebrations? I love the ideas they come up with!

Alternatives to the Advent Calendar - Planning our Christmas Traditions

Each year we make a countdown chain for the month of December, a fun decoration/craft that serves several purposes. The chain is fun to make - we practice cutting, gluing, and patience! Each link gets assigned a fun activity or craft from our activity list for the month. This helps ensure we make time for the fun family activities and traditions we want to enjoy, and that they don't get lost in the busy-ness of the season.

Here is our activity list for this year - with the first activity (for today) being the making of the chain. :) I'll post our chain, hung with care next to the stockings later this week. After making the links and writing an activity on each one, I cross reference our calendar to see whether we have time for a big or a little activity - this helps order the links!

December Activity List
Create our countdown to Christmas activity chain
Hang the chain and the stockings by the fire with care
Make a tree craft
Make hot chocolate and drink it by the fire
Drive around the neighborhood in our pajamas, enjoying the lights
Make a Santa hand craft
Make dough ornaments and bake them
Decorate dough ornaments
Bake cookies
Decorate cookies
Take treats to the fire station
Make Rudolf hand craft
Make snowflake crown craft
Bath time Santa beards
Watch the Year Without A Santa Claus together in our pajamas
Make red and green swirl cake
Make a gingerbread house
Make an angel hand and foot print craft
Make snowmen crafts with cotton balls
Take a winter hike at the park
Make a tree paper plate craft
Pick out Christmas books from the library, to supplement our collection*
Visit Santa Claus
Buy toys or clothes for a Christmas charity
Buy food and donate it to our local food pantry

* When we find a holiday book that we really like, we add it to our collection. We go to the library and check out enough holiday books so that between the library books and the ones in our collection there are 25, and read a different holiday book each night at bedtime.

Do you use an advent calendar, or an alternative way to count the days until Christmas? I'd love to hear about your traditions! What are your favorite holiday activities?

Fall Tradition - Punkin' Lovin

Each year we head over to the pumpkin patch and explore, take pictures and pick out a few things to take home with us. My favorites are the gourds, with their unique shapes, bright varied colors and interesting textures. This year Sweetpea liked the pie pumpkins best, as they were perfectly round and just her size. Sugar Plum was a big fan of the corn stalks!

I love this tradition not only because I love fall, but because it's such a fun way to get outside and soak up the last remaining fall weather, and to document how much the girls are growing. I'll be the first to admit, I'm pretty terrible at keeping up with regular photo sessions. I do take a lot of pictures, but I have to depend on the date stamp to try and figure out how old the girls are sometimes when I finally have a chance to organize and print pictures. {hangs head in shame}

This is one of the last pictures of Sweetpea with her vacation braids! (and an actual smile, while looking at the camera!)

Sugar Plum was a bit too interested in the gourds to look at the camera. So most of her pictures are like this one...love those eyelashes!

And the pictures where she isn't looking down? She's practicing her exit strategy! Since learning to walk, she loves to be on the move!

Here is a picture from last year...wow!

And one more from this year - happy fall, everyone!

Joy

Sweetpea is on cloud 9, giving a big hug to one of her favorite Sesame Street characters, Zoe!

Hello from Paradise

A Decade Ago...

chasing the remains of summer

As much as I know I'm going to miss the warmth of summer when the snow hits, I'm loving the cool nights and the chance to pull out long folded jeans. That said, we weren't above taking advantage of a near 90 degree day this week to catch one more tiptoe through the sprinklers at our favorite park.

At the beginning of the summer, Sugar Plum would cling to my side at the sight of sprinklers!

It didn't take long for both of them to get completely soaked - and the while it was HOT out, the water was FREEZING!

Didn't she just start walking a few weeks ago? And now she's running? Someone must have forgotten to tell her she's supposed to be my baby {hold me}


This post is part of Wordful and Wordless Wednesdays

She Loves the Camera

And I do believe it loves her back...

I was playing around with my new camera and trying to get a profile shot for some gifts I'm working on. She just kept coming toward me, reaching out for the lens! Who knew that the most challenging part of this project (for both girls, no less!) would be capturing them from the side? It sure has been fun trying, though...

This post is part of Wordful Wednesday, and since I wasn't too wordy today, Wordless Wednesday as well!

Generations of Love

We are so blessed to have grandparents near and dear in our lives, healthy and inspiring. Sugar Plum shares her birthday with her great grandma Marty (on the right, can you believe she's 90?!?) You might recognize her as one half of my famous grandparents.

At Sugar Plum's birthday party this past weekend we snapped some pictures of her with both of her great grandmothers - I know I'm biased, but the love and beauty in these photos takes my breath away!

Happy Birthday, Sugar Plum!

I absolutely, positively can NOT believe this little girl of mine is ONE YEAR OLD!

Wasn't it just yesterday you looked like this?

Baby girl, you have this sweet, infectious personality that draws people in. You love to smile, laugh and snuggle, and you've just started giving big kisses. Daddy calls you my little monkey because most of the time you're riding along on my hip, happy as can be. If I'm especially busy or distracted while carrying you this way, you lean out as far as you can and look at me with this big grin, as if to say, "don't forget about me!"

You are very determined, trying your best to keep up with big sister whenever you can. You will try and climb just about anything and have just started taking a few steps. You love to dance - either sitting down or while you're crawling, so cute! You love to play patty cake and peek a boo, and clap your hands. And for the last few weeks you've been teething like mad, poor thing.

My heart is filled to near bursting, and I get all mama-mushy and teary eyed when I try to put it into words. I worried a little bit about how I would be as a mama to two, about balance and individual attention and sleep and such. There could not have been a more perfect addition to our family than you, sweet girl, and I can't imagine life without you in it.

Evening Beauty

While out catching fireflies with Sweetpea, I caught this sunset streaking across the sky behind my neighbor's house. Love the brilliant color!

Sweetpea has been very vocal about her favorite color being yellow. She asks people what their favorite color is on a regular basis, and keeps running tabs on the colors her favorite people prefer. When she saw this sunset, she said: Oh my, Mama, it has both our favorite colors in it! How beautiful!

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

Grateful for the sun on my face and the sound of the waves

We spent last week at the beach - chasing waves, building sandcastles and enjoying island life. It was Sugar Plum's first introduction, and I wasn't sure how she would like it, but she and the beach became fast friends. We quickly fell into a rhythm of lazy mornings leading us to the pool by about 9 and the beach by about 10. Then back to the pool for lunch and up to the room for naps. Back to the beach mid afternoon and then another dip in the pool...I tried my best to soak up every minute of enjoyment with my beach bummin' water bugs. And now I have my memories, kept clear with pictures and my gratitude journal. Here is a peak:

• Seashells, sand castles, and salty girls

• Watching Sugar Plum discover the surf for the first time, grasping, smacking, grinning

• Sweetpea revels in the water, scratches in the sand, entertains herself for hours

• Little legs pumping, arms swinging, catching up with daddy and reaching for his hand as we approach the dunes - pig tails flying in the breeze

• My big girl is now willing to let me "do her hair" each day requesting either big girl hair (a french braid) a pony tail or "piggy tails". I.Love.It.

• Baby beach greetings - outstretched hands straight into each other's mouths...hey have you tried this sand? Isn't it the best you've ever tasted?

• The sound of the surf, the feel of the wind in my hair and the heat of the sun on my face...

• Tiny hand prints made from sun screen on the sliding door out to the balcony

What are you grateful for this week?

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven

Baby Toes

Play hard and sleep hard...

I have limited internet access this week, so I'm going to stick mostly to images from our adventures at the beach. Once we get settled back in there will be much more to share! "Vacations" certainly aren't carefree and relaxing like they used to be, but they are still so worth it! Oh, and Sugar Plum is just as much a water bug as big sister Sweetpea...

June featured sponsors and affiliates:

the Vintage Pearl - beautiful hand stamped jewelry

Neptune Sprouts - unique clothing for your little sprout

Earth Mama Angel Baby - gifts from the earth for your gift from heaven